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I think.

This is a good idea at this price. I go to Micro Center in the US and they have been one of the biggest sellers of Linux and BSD over the years. But a lot of the times the marketing was bad and also the price was WAY too high.

MS stuff is always all over computer stores. And more important its on the End Caps. The part of the isle you first see when you come to it.

Product placement is the key here. If its just thrown on the bottom of a shelf then no one will see it unless looking for it.

My thing has always been that a company like Ubuntu (In the US) needs to partner up with a OEM and sell their products on QVC. or make an infomercial. Tiger Direct does those and they do very well. They market their PC's on QVC etc and make good money from what I understand. Dell even sells PC's on QVC and the Home Shopping Network.

If people can sit down for 30 minutes and watch a GOOD demo of how Linux works when pre installed and what you can do with it and how it works with Windows, how to install apps etc. More people would be interested.

Also another key marketing point would be support. The fact that for a low fee you can buy support at any time you need help. A lot of people don't know or don't think you can do that with MS and Apple. They think that once it doesnt work or that have a problem it's best to call a friend cause it will cost an arm and a leg to call MS.

Canonical has the chance here to make their name number 3 in the PC market (Microsoft, Apple, Canonical)

An Ubuntu/Canononical brand PC? Interesting idea, considering the wonderful way they deal with multigenerational bugs in their OS, I cant wait to see how well they manage Hardware support. "Not our issue, thats and upstream supplier issue so WE dont actually have to do anything to help you solve it, kthxby."

For some reason there are some poignent parts of The Illiad that come to mind when thinking of Ubuntu mindset as applied to hardware.

Quoting:Steven actually I had more in mind of an albatross, or did I mix up my greek stories again?

My first thought was the not-so-occasional disembowlments during the battle scenes ... then came the Greeks dragging Hector's dead body around the cul-de-sac ... but I figured you meant Trojan horse, as in sneaking Ubuntu into the Windows world in a branded box that's guaranteed to work ...

Ubuntu or Mandriva or Mepis (that'd be another good one) selling their own hardware line would be great for them, they could test the heck out of their distros on their hardware and make sure everything was 100% before they released it...and if you used their distro on hardware that wasn't theirs, they could say "Hey, buy our hardware!". It would also give you some specs to buy against in case you wanted to get the hardware elsewhere. I think it would be a great benefit. You also get a larger portion of the market than just those people who want your distro, because it would be pretty good for the entire FOSS OS market. Yes, there are places like ZaReason and System76, but that's not the mother company selling it. I guess we're looking for a Linux version of Apple.

Sorry folks, it's a dumb idea that is more likely to bankrupt the very entities you are pushing into a dubious battle.

Hardware is a marginal business where too small a market share can consigns them to a premature death, since they lack the volume to eke out a marginal profit. Moreover, both the afore mentioned software/support packagers are too lightly capitalized to enter such dangerous waters. Therefore, please preface your remarks with the caveat that these are your dreams, otherwise offer your cash to fund these dead end deals.

[I do not like Dell. Moreover, I recognize they have conflicting reasons to even offer a Linux OS on their hardware. Nonetheless, they have the expertise, the experience and the business sense to succeed if they so desire. Yes it is a bad bet, but better than deep sixing those that have a purer Linux sensibility.]

I agree. Let Canonical concentrate on Ubuntu and let the folks who know how to sell hardware sell hardware. For all practical purposes, Zareason/System 76 are Canonical PC's, even if they don't carry the brand. That would be something that Canonical could fix by offering a "Canonical Certified" branding service.